Dear Mom: I'd Rather You Write About Me, Not You

Dear Mom: I'd Rather You Write About Me, Not You

Dear Mom: I'd Rather You Write About Me, Not You

Coming from a family of writers, I am all too familiar with the delicate issue you raise, Bonnie, of
whether and how to write about one’s family
. But I don’t think it’s fair to assume that just because Anna aired her problems with her
mother’s marriage to a con man
on the web, she hasn’t also had the "heart-to-heart talk" you wish for her with her mother. Nor do I think her piece came across as entirely "disapproving," as you called it. There’s an interesting power dynamic between this suddenly giddy and irrational mother and her skeptical, now-protective daughter, and it’s one that Anna, as one half of the duo, has the right to hash out in print; provided, at least according to my family’s rules, that her mother get a chance to approve, veto, or tweak the final draft before it’s published. (As Anna wrote in a
comment on Bonnie’s post
, her mother did read and make corrections to the piece.)